John O. Norquist, Change Agent April 19, 2009 One of the panelists at this week’s annual meeting of the Metropolitan Development Association is John O. Norquist, a former lathe operator and community organizer who later became a state legislator and then mayor. As mayor of Milwaukee from 1988-2004, Norquist oversaw a revision of the city’s... Read more »
I-81 FINDINGS: PHYSICAL CONDITIONS The Onondaga Citizens League “Rethinking I-81” Study Committee has studied the history and the physical condition of the I-81 corridor, reviewed access issues, and examined cases of freeway removals in American cities. The study report, including the committee’s findings and recommendations, will be issued later this spring. In considering the future of... Read more »
WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF I-81 DOWNTOWN CLOSED? When we think about engineering solutions to traffic problems, it’s useful to keep in mind that human behavior is a key variable in the equation. Drivers adjust their behavior to the situations presented to them. When the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake damaged San Francisco’s Central Freeway, the destroyed... Read more »
SHIFTING PRIORITIES: HOW FREEWAY REMOVAL DECISIONS ARE MADE As we saw in San Francisco’s ‘Freeway Revolt’, the city’s quality of life and economic development priorities fired opposition to freeways and influenced decisions to reject the building of expressways through the city in the 1950’s and 60’s and their rebuilding in the 1990’s. But citizen opposition... Read more »
San Francisco’s ‘Freeway Revolt’ The Embarcadero, the six-lane, tree-lined boulevard along the waterfront that replaced the Embarcadero Freeway in San Francisco, in many ways epitomizes the freeway-to-boulevard movement. The freeway, which separated downtown from the waterfront, was completed in 1959 as part of an intended freeway system connecting the Bay and Golden Gate Bridges. However,... Read more »
